


Thought You Were Dead

by Dancing_Heart_Pony



Category: Jacksepticeye (Video Blogging RPF), Markiplier (Video Blogging RPF), Video Blogging RPF
Genre: Depression, Five Stages of Grief, Grief/Mourning, Heavy Angst, M/M, Occult, One Shot, Suicidal Thoughts, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-10
Updated: 2018-02-10
Packaged: 2019-03-14 17:39:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,342
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13595055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dancing_Heart_Pony/pseuds/Dancing_Heart_Pony
Summary: Anti gets shot during a hunt and dies in Dark’s arms, still spitting out sarcasm.It’s only after he’s gone that Dark realizes all the things he should have said. He is distraught.Since they are a unique species, not much is known about the life/death process. This is the first time this has happened, and considering how much faster  they heal than humans, Dark didn’t know this was possible. He turns into a delusional mess and spends a long time grieving, to the point of contemplating his own death.





	1. At A Loss

**Author's Note:**

> Another short one-shot while I’m still stuck in the middle of like, 8 other longer works.
> 
> This was actually a spontaneous idea inspired by the song Him & I by Halsey. 
> 
> Something about the line “2017 Bonnie and Clyde. Wouldn't see the point of living on if one of us died.” just hit me really hard, even though I’ve heard it before. XD

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> They’re just there to collect the money they’re owed.  
> How was Dark supposed to know this guy had no idea he owed them?  
> How was he supposed to know this guy had a gun?  
> How has he supposed to know that one gunshot could actually kill a demon?

A gunshot rips through the air. In all the chaos, Dark sees Anti falls backwards from the sheer force. They’re facing a rather bold victim, who unbeknownst to either of them, owns a gun. Dark doesn’t pay attention to where Anti was shot or what he’s doing now. He’s much more focused on the other party. Anti can deal with it himself right now. They’ve both been shot before, they heal faster than a human would. It’s not usually a problem.

Though he’s unconcerned with the severity of Anti’s wound now, he is still livid about their victim fighting back. Also, even if he won’t let himself fret over Anti, like a mother over her child, he is protective. He turns to meet eyes with the wielder of the weapon.

“You shouldn’t have done that.” he hisses.

“If you don’t back down, I’ll shoot you too!” the man spits back.

The shadow man chuckles darkly. “What a shame. We were only here to collect payment. Now it seems the plan has changed.” he takes the man’s moment of confusion to pull his own gun from where it’s tucked into his jacket. He cocks it and holds it up on display, while the other man seems to recoil.

“What is it that you want?”

“Well, I did simply want what you owe me, but now you’ve made a mess of things. You hurt my friend, and now, _it’s personal_.”

In one swift movement, Dark’s own gun is aimed and fired straight at the man’s head. With the silencer, there’s hardly a pop, then the sound of impact. The man falls to the floor with a clunk and Dark return his weapon to it’s pocket.

There’s a faint wheezing coming from the corner. It’s rather irritating and Dark feels inclined to find and eliminate the source, before he remembers that he hasn’t heard Anti complaining this whole time. It’s only then that he notices what’s happening across the room.

Anti is laying motionless on the ground, in a pool of his own blood. Dark rushes to him. He kneels and lifts the other’s body in to his arms, more hesitant than he’s ever been. With Anti, he’s always been as rough and forceful as he wants, but now he’s so gentle, it’s uncharacteristic.

The other is still breathing, but just barely. His breath sounds choked and gravely, and his eyes are glazed over.

Dark frantically searches the surface of his partner’s body for the source of the bleeding, so he can stop it. He finds the darkest patch of blood forming on the left side of Anti’s upper body. He lifts the fabric of Anti’s shirt to find the open wound in his chest, right where his heart would be, and— _oh god_. The bullet is still in there. _Fuck_. Dark knows what he must do, but there aren’t really the tools or time for such an operation.

The shadowy man whips his head over his shoulder and his eyes dart around the room, hunting for something, anything, he could use. Suddenly, they catch a familiar glint of metal; Anti’s knife. It’s not the best thing, but it’s what he’s got to work with right now. He reaches for the object and holds it firmly, although his hands are still shaking.

Anti makes a sputtering sound, something like a cough, and Dark turns back to look at him.

“Anti!?” he exclaims, and he can’t help the hopefulness that makes his voice crack slightly.

“The fock you doin’ with that?” the green-haired goblin raspes.

“I have to get this out of you chest, or— well, you might not...” he trails off. He was going to say, ‘it might not heal properly’ but he hadn’t even considered that there could be a possibility worse outcome. 

Anti snorts, though it sounds more like a growl. His hand jerks up and pushes the knife back. “I’ll be fine. Forget it.”

Dark gives him a indignant glare. “I’m not leaving it, are you insane!?”

The other chuckles but it turns into a coughing fit almost immediately.

“Shhh, don’t waste your breath. Just sit tight. I’m going to get this thing out of you.“ he thinks Anti is about to protest again, but he only grumbles a bit.

Dark holds the knife awkwardly as he tries to get the best angle to pry the slug from its burrow in Anti’s chest. He gets the knife positioned and scrapes around inside the cavity.

Anti squirms around and squawks in pain. “Ah! Careful, fuckface!”

“Shut up and stay still!” Dark shoots back, annoyed by the break in his concentration.

Eventually, the blade catches on the bullet and Dark eases it out. Right after the foreign object is removed, there’s a gush of blood, then more, and it doesn’t stop.

“Shit...” Dark grumbles under his breath. He bunches up Anti’s shirt and holds it against his chest, but the flow doesn’t let up.

Anti is whining continually now, and Dark knows there’s something very wrong. Anti is losing a lot of blood, faster than before, and it’s not good.

There’s not much else Dark can do now. The wound was apparently deep, and may have actually punctured a major artery. _Shit, shit_. Dark just continues applying pressure to the injury, in hopes that it will stop before Anti runs out of blood. He notices that Anti’s eyes are starting to drift closed.

“Anti, don’t you dare-“ he warns, but the green demon just looks smug, even as he’s starting to fade out.

“Fuck off, I’m tired.” his voice is shaky and uneven, with a trace of defiance, then his eyes close and he goes still.

Dark has never once felt the urge to cry, but right now his eyes feel strange and heavy. They tingle with an overwhelming itchiness.

“Anti, stop playing around!” he shakes his partner, but the other just lies there, limp.

Dark’s eyes widen at the sudden prospect of legitimately losing his companion. He fumbles as he grabs Anti’s wrist, pressing his fingers to it, checking for any signs of a heartbeat. He also checks Anti’s neck, determined to find a pulse, but he finds nothing.

“What!?” he lets go of Anti’s shirt. He just sits there, in shock and confusion. Has time stopped, or is it moving faster? Dark can’t tell. It’s all a confused limbo right now. It seems like everything else is rushing past him. A few moments—or a few hours, he doesnt know—go by and Dark is just starting off into the distance. He’s not particularly concerned with the blurred objects around him, his focus is almost like it’s in a different plain of existence.

All of a sudden, the weight that’s resting on Dark’s legs seems to be diminishing. That causes him to look back to see his companion’s body crumbling to dust before his eyes. He stares in mute horror as the dust rises into a cloud of smoke, then dissipates, as if being carried off by a breeze.

Dark watches with a blank expression. He has never seen this before. He’s not sure what just happened. It’s not as if there’s a book on supernatural beings’ life cycles. He and Anti were the only two of their kind; not entirely human, and not just monsters. He was so sure that something like this couldn’t happen to them, that they were immortal, but he has to be wrong. If all the previous evidence wasn’t enough to convince him before, he surely understands now:

Anti is gone. He is alone.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I learned how to do actual chapters, instead of making multiple works in a series! •~•


	2. Delusions

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Dark can’t accept the fact that Anti is dead. He does everything to convince himself otherwise, and he’s starting to believe his own lies.

Dark takes some time to fully accept the fact that Anti is gone.

When he wakes the next morning, he expects Anti to be in the adjacent bed, but obviously he isn’t. He calls out to him, confused about where he could be.

Dark convinces himself that last night was all just some illusion, a nightmare. Anti is just missing, went out on a solo rampage. At any moment he’ll burst through the motel door with blood on his hands, asking Dark to cover for him again.

It doesn’t happen.

It’s a week later by the time Dark grasps the fact that Anti isn’t coming back. He’s still beyond delusional, still denying that his partner died and disintegrated right in front of him. Only now he’s pissed.

Anti just left and didn’t tell him where he was going, what he was doing, or when he’d be back.

For a long while, he feigns apathy, as he always did when Anti _was_ around, but somewhere in the deep recesses of his mind, he is worried. That part that he never expressed is starting to show.

He had cared deeply for Anti, though he never showed it. He always pushed it down, because human feelings are disgusting and burdensome. They have no practical use. To apparently and audibly swoon over another person is self-degrading. That was what Dark had always believed. Now Dark regrets not telling him. He was always so cold and cruel, but by the end of this week, he’s all but lost his dignity. He wishes he could’ve said something that would’ve prevented this.

In the following days, Dark starts to shut himself down. He doesn’t get out of bed, sleeping for irregular stretches of time, even by non-human standards. He hardly moves, hardly thinks, if he can help it. He just feels numb.

The motel room is in disarray, which would’ve never been acceptable if he felt like himself. Nothing feels right though.

Images haunt him in dreams. He’s never dreamt so much in all his existence. He sees horrible motion pictures every time he closes his eyes.

Anti bleeding out on the floor, while he himself is pinned to the wall, helpless to intervene.

Anti sinking into an abyss of blackness, clawing at Dark’s arm, begging for him to do something before he’s dragged under.

A simple gravestone with Anti’s name on it, written in blood.

Sometimes he just stands there, a silhouette, his eyes glowing. He says nothing, but his glare is condescending. 

It’s all terrible, and there’s never a break.

 

The motel staff have come knocking every few days, just being sure Dark is still there and still alive. He shows face to appease them when they show up, but after they leave, it’s back to the bed. He may be physically alive, but he’s dead on the inside.

In a lot of ways, Dark’s grief could be compared to a rather traumatizing human loss. Though Anti was often a pain in the ass, he was the only being that Dark had ever considered his friend. He could trust him, for the most part. He was never worried about Anti betraying him anyway. True, their partnership involved a lot of disagreement and fighting, but they needed each other in some capacity. One would think Dark would appreciate the peace and quiet that came along with Anti not around, but after so long dwelling in close proximity, it was almost like background ambiance. Anti constantly talking was like white noise. He finds that it’s too quiet without it. He misses it.

His thoughts take him to the deepest reaches of his consciousness. He contemplates what it is to be alive, and what it is to be dead. What it is to exist, but not really feel worthy or have a definite purpose. He didn’t know before, but now it’s even more unclear. It seems even more of an abstract concept, now that he’s in this alone.

What is the point of being the only one of your kind? Of being alone? What is the sense in there being just one? Surely there isn’t any.

 

It’s 3am on a Tuesday night when Dark finally acknowledges the agonizing moment of Anti’s death as fact. He’s been repressing the reality of it for so long, that it still doesn’t seem real. He knows it’s the truth though. Dark’s eyes have never deceived him. Even when he was delusional he never had any hallucinations or saw anything that wasn’t real. He knows the difference between nightmares and real life, though the themes of both are starting to overlap these days.

Dark has always been pridefully remorseless about anything and everything in his life. He makes decisions and they are mainly for his own benefit. He doesn’t bother concerning himself with others unless he’s trying to manipulate them. He’s cold. His empathy ranges on a scale from 0 to negative 100, but for the first time, he’s experiencing guilt.

He should have paid more attention that day. He should have saw the gun before he did. He should have warned Anti. He should have jumped in front of the bullet. It should have been him.

_It should have been me._

Nothing can stop his self-destructive thoughts. He shouldn’t have let this happen. He blames himself. This is his fault. He could have stopped it, if he hadn’t been so selfish. He had only worried about himself and the money he was owed, and it cost him the life of his only friend.

He wishes he were dead, at least, in Anti’s stead. He’s not one to beg, but currently he admits he’d do anything just to be able to save him.

 

Later in the week, Dark is just floating on the barrier between oblivion and acceptance, in something like sleep. He’s not really asleep, but he might as well be, since it makes him oblivious to most physically things. It puts him at the same level of vulnerability as sleep. It’s like, a deep meditation, focused on trying to not feel anything. He’s there, and it’s working for the most part. It helps him not to dwell on loneliness and hating himself, if only for a short while.

A loud noise breaks his concentration and startles him back into awareness. He’s usually able to ignore disturbances coming from outside his room, but this sounds like it’s closer.  
Dark stirs, sitting up in bed and blinking back drowsiness. His eyes quickly adjust to the dimness as they fall upon a shadowy figure, standing in the doorway, illuminated by moonlight.

Maybe he _is_ starting to see things after all, because he can’t possibly be seeing this. He thought he could clearly distinguish between dreams and reality,  but at the moment he’s not so sure. His dreams can be cruel, but never have they felt this real. His mind can’t possibly get every minute detail like this, can it? All the sight, and senses, and feelings rushing through his head. But this can’t be real. It just can’t, because Anti is dead, and yet...

Anti is standing in the room.


	3. Impossible

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> How the hell is this happening?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This will be the last chapter of this story. It didn’t go as smoothly as I planned, but...

Dark’s heart is pounding in his chest. He doesn’t know if this is real. It’s getting harder to distinguish the details about his surroundings. Everything is a blur of pictures and muffled sounds. He knows that it’s night time, late, maybe so late that it’s early morning.

Anti stares back at him with his mismatched eyes that almost glow in the dark.

“This place is trashed, Dark. What the hell?”

When he doesn’t answer, Anti looks annoyed.

“What?” he asks, as if it’s perfectly normal that he’s traipsing around the motel at this hour. And it might have been, when he was alive, but’s he’s _not_ supposed to be alive.

Dark still has an expression of disbelief painted on his face. He rises from his place in bed and moves to stand in front of Anti. The other’s eyes meet his and Dark feels that sting again, like he could cry. He doesn’t, of course. He reaches out, and when his fingers brush against Anti’s arm there’s no denying that he exists.

Anti flinches away from his touch, and glares at him.

“You’re alive...?”

“I’m alive.” Anti agrees. “Thought you were rid of me, did’ya?” and he smirks. The bastard _smirks_ , like this is the funniest joke!

Instead of getting angry, like he wants to, Dark shakes his head. “How?”

Anti shrugs.

“Your heart stopped beating! How the hell are you here right now!?”

“I went to sleep, and I was in the void—Y’know, the one where we met?”

Dark nods. How could he forget?

“Well, I was there, and then I wasn’t.”

“What do you mean?” Dark’s brow furrows.

“I don’t know. I just remember like, my conscientiousness being there, floating. Just my mind, not my body, and then, poof! I woke up in that guy’s house.”

“Just now?”

“Like an hour ago.” Anti grumbles, “I had to walk here just now, because _someone_ left with the car!”

“You turned to smoke and blew away! You’ve been gone for like a month!” Dark practically cries out. “How was I to know you weren’t truly dead!?”

Now Anti’s eyes widen. “Oh, wow. Jesus, it didn’t feel like that long...”

“You disappeared, and I-I thought you were dead, and-“ Dark swallows what little pride he has left as he steps forward to wrap his arms tightly around the green demon, capturing him in a bone-crushing embrace. “I thought I’d lost you.” he says, his chin against Anti’s shoulder, close to his ear. 

Anti squirms and protests at first, trying to get away. “Hey, get off ‘o me!”

Dark’s grip doesn’t falter as he continues to hold the other to his chest. He knows this must be confusing to Anti, since they’ve never had any prolonged physical contact before all this, but hell if he’s not going to indulge himself now.

After a while, Anti gives up on struggling. “Jeez Dark,” he sighs, then he finally reciprocates the action, with his hands awkwardly at Dark’s waist. “If I would’a known you’d get this sappy, I would’ve stayed in the void.”

Dark’s grip gradually loosens, with his hands moving to rest on Anti’s sides. He draws back just a little, so he can look at the other’s face. The glitch looks mildly uncomfortable, but not angry. Dark lifts one hand to cup his cheek. 

Anti looks confused now. He keeps his hands where they are, because moving them back to his own sides would be even more awkward than just continuing to touch Dark.

And then Dark is tilting his head in and he’s kissing Anti. He’s decided he doesn’t want to hold back anymore. Anti is here, and he’s alive, and from now on, Dark just wants to take advantage of every moment they have together. 

Anti tenses in surprise, his fingers gripping harder at Dark’s hips, but he’s not fighting, not pulling away.

When Dark pulls back, Anti’s face is beet red, and Dark thinks it’s the best sight. Anti’s eyes are wide and staring, his mouth is agape, and Dark almost misses the tiny breath he lets out. 

“Um...” Anti’s voice wavers. “Wow. Okay.”

Dark hums low in his throat, “Hm?”

“That was... unexpected. I know you’re supposed to be like, the _master of seduction_ or whatever, but... I thought ya hated me...?”

Dark shakes his head. “I never hated you. I was just... taking you for granted. I felt what it was like to lose you, and I’ve decided that I don’t want that.” 

“Oh, really?” Anti looks smug. “What _do_ you want?” he asks, as if the answer isn’t already painfully clear. 

“I want you to be mine. You make me feel things I’m embarrassed to admit... and I don’t want to treat you like I did before. I want to make sure that something like that doesn’t happen again.”

“I think that might be... interesting.”

Dark’s face lights up at that, his eyes soften and a small smile on his lips. “You think?”

“Yeah, but like, I don’t wanna give up the hate thing we already have...” Anti pouts and he jabs at Dark’s ribs playfully. 

“You can still hate me.” Dark raises an eyebrow.

“Oh, yeah?” Anti presses himself to Dark’s chest.

“Oh, yes~” Dark purrs and he finds one of Anti’s hands, holding it in his, brushing his lips over the knuckles. 

And yes, Dark thinks, _this could be_ very _interesting._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t really like this chapter very much, but eh. I’m not good at endings anyway.


End file.
